The Inside on Rescued, 15-Year-Old Album: "It's a Small Part of Miami Music History"

Jorge Graupera played guitar in Plains, whose 2011 self-titled record was named the New Times Broward-Palm Beach's best local record of 2011. The group itself took the title of Best Supergroup in Miami New Times' 2012 Best Of edition. Before that, he played guitar in Guajiro, a visceral, politically charged Cuban punk rock act that opened for the likes of Flogging Molly and Rancid. And before that, as the guitarist for The Brand, Graupera found himself at the heart of the early-2000s indie-rock scene in South Florida, along with bands such as Humbert and The Bikes.

Now, at the end of his career, Graupera has gone back to the beginning.

Back in the 1990s, Graupera played in the Inside, a grungy outfit that also included drummer Fernando Sanchez, singer Omar Garcia, and bassist Drago Strahija. The band recorded one album's worth of material before moving on to other things. Graupera and Garcia would form The Brand with drummer Juan Oña. And the Inside, and the album it would have released, gathered moss.

That is, until Oña tried to sell a reel-to-reel tape player. "It was a fluke. It wasn't something we planned," Graupera says. "Juan Oña wanted to sell this reel-to reel-machine, and he had to see if it worked. So, he put a reel in it and it was some drum recordings."

"Juan works as an audio archivist," Garcia adds, "so he started dumping it over, figuring out what all he was missing."

"I gave him a few things, and Omar, who is now in Seattle, had the majority of the stuff in a closet in his mom's house," Graupera says. "And Juan wanted to know if we wanted to put it out."

Garcia moved from Miami to Brooklyn in 2005, and from there to Seattle four years ago. Coincidentally, he had been practicing genealogy, archiving the history of the Garcia clan. "And so, this really seemed to just be an extension of that. The Inside existed, this album was gonna come out, and it's a small part of Miami music history," he says. "We're the only people who have the tapes, so it was up to us to do it, just so it's out there."

"Plus, we thought it'd be a fitting tribute to our bass player, Drago, who died in a plane crash a few years ago," Graupera adds. "We're proud of it and we want to share with the old fans of that band and just leave a document, I suppose, of that time."